Quick answer
A cherry picker is a boom lift. The two names describe the same class of machine: a platform on the end of a boom that reaches up and out, so a worker can get to something a scissor lift cannot stand under. The name comes from orchard work. The types differ in how the boom moves and what carries it: articulating booms fold to get up and over an obstruction, telescopic booms extend in a straight line for maximum outreach, and both come as self-propelled machines, truck mounts or trailer units. Equip Hire hires self-propelled articulating booms, electric and diesel. We do not hire truck-mounted, trailer-mounted or insulated machines, and we do not supply an operator with the machine.
If you ring an equipment hire yard and ask for a cherry picker, nobody will correct you. It is the name most Australian trades use, and it means a boom-type elevating work platform: a work platform on the end of a boom, which reaches up and outwards rather than straight up. The industry calls the same machine a boom lift. Manufacturers call it a boom-type EWP, and that is the phrase you will see on the compliance plate and in the regulations.
The name is older than the machines. The first platforms of this kind were built to lift a picker into a tree without a ladder, and orchard work is where the term stuck. It has outlived the job it was named for, which is why a facade cleaner, an electrician and an arborist can all be talking about the same machine while using three different words for it.
Why the name matters when you are hiring
If you search for a cherry picker and the hire yard only lists boom lifts, you may conclude they do not have what you need. They almost certainly do. The reverse is also true: a yard that advertises cherry pickers may be listing truck-mounted machines you cannot use on a construction site, or self-propelled machines you cannot park on a nature strip. The name tells you almost nothing about whether the machine suits your job. The boom type, the reach and the drive do.
The types, and how they differ
Articulating boom lifts, also called knuckle booms
An articulating boom folds at one or more joints. That is what allows the platform to travel up, over and back down again, so it can clear a roof line, an awning, a fence or a run of fixed plant and put the worker on the far side of it. It is the type to ask for when there is something in the way between where the machine can stand and where the work is.
The trade-off is that a folding boom uses part of its length getting around the obstruction, so an articulating machine generally reaches less far out than a telescopic machine of the same rated height. That is the geometry, not a fault.
Telescopic boom lifts, also called straight booms or stick booms
A telescopic boom extends in one line. For the same working height it reaches further out than an articulating boom, which makes it the machine for long clear spans: over water, across a stockpile, along a structure the machine cannot get close to. What it cannot do is reach over anything: if the platform has to get past an obstruction, a straight boom has to go around it.
Self-propelled booms
A self-propelled boom drives itself. The whole machine moves across the site under its own power and the operator drives it from the platform. Electric machines suit firm, sealed surfaces and enclosed spaces; diesel four-wheel-drive machines handle site ground and grades within their rating. This is the category most construction and maintenance hire falls into.
Truck-mounted cherry pickers
A truck mount is a boom on the back of a vehicle. It drives to the job at road speed and sets up on outriggers at the kerb, which is why you see them on street lighting, powerline and tree work. It works only from where the truck can legally and safely stand. Insulated versions exist for live electrical work and are a specialist class of their own.
Trailer-mounted booms
A trailer boom is towed behind a vehicle and set up on outriggers. It is light and common in facilities work, but it has to be repositioned by the tow vehicle every time the work moves along, which makes it slow on a job with many set-ups.
Spider lifts and tracked booms
A spider lift is a tracked boom on outriggers, built to cross soft or delicate ground and set up in a footprint a wheeled machine could not use. They are specialist machines, usually hired with an operator.
Which types we actually hire
Equip Hire hires self-propelled articulating boom lifts, electric and diesel, and nothing else in the boom range. We do not hire telescopic, truck-mounted, insulated, trailer-mounted or spider lifts; the trailers in our fleet are plant trailers for moving machines. If your job needs one of those, say so early and we will tell you straight rather than quote something that will not do the work.
- Electric: Zoomlion ZA10RJE (31ft), Genie Z-40/23N RJ (40ft)
- Diesel: Genie Z-34/22 (34ft), LGMG AR11J (34ft), Skyjack SJ45 AJ+ (45ft), Skyjack SJ46 AJ (46ft), Skyjack SJ51 AJ (51ft), Sinoboom AB18J (60ft)
The feet figure is the platform height class. The working height, outreach, width, weight and platform capacity of every machine are on the boom lift and cherry picker hire page, each from the manufacturer specification sheet for that model. Where a figure is not on the sheet, the field is left empty rather than estimated; ask and we will confirm it from the document.
Where a job needs low ground pressure rather than reach, the machines we hire for that are tracked scissor lifts, which lift straight up.
Work height and outreach are separate
Two figures decide whether a boom lift reaches the work, and only one of them is usually quoted.
Working height is roughly where your hands reach: about two metres above the platform floor. Platform height is the floor itself, and it is the smaller number in every specification. The feet figure in a machine’s name is normally the platform height class.
Horizontal outreach is how far the platform can get away from the machine. This is the figure that decides whether the machine can stand somewhere firm and legal and still reach the work. A boom with plenty of height and not enough outreach is the wrong machine, and it is the most common sizing mistake we see.
The maximum height and the maximum outreach do not happen at the same time. The machine has a working envelope, and on many booms the platform capacity is lower in parts of it. Tell us the height, the distance out and the weight on the platform, including the people, and we will read the envelope for the machine. See how to read a boom lift reach chart, or start from the work with the working height calculator.
Indoors or outdoors
An electric boom can work inside a building on a firm, level, sealed floor. It produces no exhaust, which is what makes it possible in an enclosed or occupied space, and it is quieter than a diesel. Check the floor loading before it goes in: a boom concentrates load, and reaching out moves that load around under the machine.
A diesel boom is an outdoor machine. The engine rules out enclosed spaces. What it gives you in exchange is ground clearance, four wheel drive and a grade rating, so it works on the ground a site actually has before the slab goes down.
Licence and competency
In New South Wales, a boom-type elevating work platform with a boom length of 11 metres or more requires a WP class high risk work licence. The measure is the length of the boom, which is not the same figure as the working height, so a machine’s advertised height does not answer the licence question on its own. Ask for the boom length of the specific machine and we will confirm it from the manufacturer sheet.
Below that threshold, and in addition to a licence above it, sites normally expect recognised EWP operator training, commonly asked for as a Yellow Card, plus a site induction and familiarisation with the actual machine. Boom work also involves a harness attached to the platform anchor point, a difference from scissor lift work that catches people out. Our EWP licence guide for NSW sets out where the line falls.
Equip Hire hires machines only. We do not supply an operator, so the operator’s competency, and the paperwork that proves it, stays with the hirer.
How to choose, in four questions
- What is in the way? If something has to be reached over, you want an articulating machine. If the run is long and clear, a telescopic machine reaches further.
- How high, and how far out? Measure to the work, not to the top of the building, and measure how far the machine will have to stand back from it.
- What is the machine standing on? Sealed and level points to electric. Site ground, gravel or a grade points to diesel and four wheel drive.
- How does it get in? The gate width, the ground on the way through and a firm level place for the delivery truck to unload decide whether the right machine can reach the job.
Send us those four answers with your suburb and we will name the machine and quote delivery with it. If a boom lift is the wrong tool and a scissor lift or a tracked machine suits the job better, we will say that instead. Get a hire quote.